{"id":368228,"date":"2025-05-18T12:12:58","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T16:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/?p=368228"},"modified":"2025-05-18T12:12:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T16:12:58","slug":"heart-rending-queer-crush-in-pondering-about-my-memories-at-teatro-de-la-luna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/2025\/05\/18\/heart-rending-queer-crush-in-pondering-about-my-memories-at-teatro-de-la-luna\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart-rending queer crush in ‘Pondering About My Memories’ at Teatro de la Luna"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the center of the stage at Teatro de la Luna\u2019s intimate black box in Petworth is a black block covered with graffiti on the theme of \u201cAMOR\u201d and \u201cLOVE\u201d \u2014 hearts and stars and such, scrawled in fluorescent-colored chalk. That simple set piece points to the gist of the play we’re about to see \u2014 a queer adolescent\u2019s fateful infatuation with an agemate \u2014 but it barely hints at the heart-rending emotionality that will flood the space as Rodin Alcerro’s profoundly affecting two-hander, P<\/em>ondering <\/em>About My Memories, <\/em>unfolds.<\/p>\n

Alcerro, who also directs, wrote his heartfelt play in Spanish. (\u201cI am the only one that can do the theater I want to see,\u201d he said matter-of-factly during a talkback on opening night.) Alcerro\u2019s tight and touchingly poetic text is performed in Oscar Quiroz\u2019s engaging English translation, accompanied by on-screen Spanish surtitles \u2014 a reversal for Teatro de la Luna, which performs in Spanish with English surtitles.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Joshua Lucas (Max) and Pablo Guill\u00e9n (Manas\u00e9s) in ‘Pondering About My Memories.\u2019 Photo by Rodin Alcerro.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I first discovered P<\/em>ondering About My Memories<\/em> during last summer\u2019s Capital Fringe Festival in a production I adored. (My rave is here<\/a>.) Upon learning that the play would be remounted with the same superb cast \u2014 Pablo Guill\u00e9n as Manas\u00e9s, the young man who recalls his teenage crush on Max, played by Joshua Lucas \u2014 I didn\u2019t think twice about seeing the play again. Suffice it to say, I was smitten again.<\/p>\n

The character of Honduran-born Manas\u00e9s functions both as the play\u2019s thirtysomething narrator\/memoirist, who addresses the audience, and, stepping into the play\u2019s multiple memory scenes, as the boy he remembers being when he found his first friend (and first love) in American-born Max. Their relationship quickly becomes a hold-your-breath storyline that turns with stunning twists on whether Max will reciprocate Manas\u00e9s\u2019 impassioned affection.<\/p>\n

In a line that sums up the play\u2019s form and content beautifully, Manas\u00e9s says of Max:<\/p>\n

\n

Sometimes a memory will exhaust itself and feel the need to escape. But if I let him go, what will I have left? Life is nothing but treasuring memories, otherwise\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He trails off.<\/p>\n

Early on, as the boys rest side-by-side from a remembered game of catch, Manas\u00e9s asks, out of the blue, \u201cWhat do we live for? Have you ever wondered that?\u201d Within moments, Manas\u00e9s feels guilt because he didn\u2019t know at the time that Max\u2019s older brother had recently committed suicide, shamed and rejected by their religious parents for crossdressing. Max shares that he discovered the body, wearing women\u2019s clothes, when he went into his brother\u2019s bedroom to give him a hug on his 23rd birthday. Manas\u00e9s, immediately realizing that his \u201cWhat do we live for?\u201d query was a gaffe, pursues Max to apologize to him.<\/p>\n

I tease out those two details \u2014 Max\u2019s impulse to give his brother a hug, and Manas\u00e9s\u2019 impulse to give Max an apology \u2014 because they betoken the deep well of tenderness and sensitivity that flows through this entire production and that writer-director Alcerro has an all-access pass to.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Joshua Lucas (Max) and Pablo Guill\u00e9n (Manas\u00e9s) in ‘Pondering About My Memories.\u2019 Photos by Rodin Alcerro.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That keen centrality of inner feelings finds expression in every instant of Guill\u00e9n\u2019s and Lucas\u2019s performances. They mime endearing glimpses from their youthful lives, such as when they skip pebbles across the surface of an imagined body of water. They slip easily in and out of the present and past (some memories of which Manas\u00e9s admits are wishful and false). They flit like sprites from thought to thought and memory to memory. They can be jocular and outright goofy. Episodically, they transcend the script\u2019s poetry, interposing between passages of text emotively revelatory storytelling in wordless pas de deux. (Both actors are Synetic movement theater alums, and it shows.) At points when the characters’ emotions erupt outside the sayable or danceable, Brandon Cook’s sound design and an uncredited lighting design pack an emphatic wallop.<\/p>\n

Wit and humor are amply at play as when Max invites Manas\u00e9s to come to dinner with his parents, who are devout and homophobic, and the ensuing scene of family fracturing is depicted as tabletop comedy with cutout puppets on sticks.<\/p>\n

When the play takes a dark turn, it\u2019s wrenching: After losing touch with Max for a while, Manas\u00e9s learns to his dismay that Max has been absent because he has a girlfriend, Emily, whom he got pregnant. Max asks Manas\u00e9s to sign an authorization for Emily to get an illegal abortion since Manas\u00e9s, at 18, is of age to do so. Manas\u00e9s agrees; it\u2019s for his beloved friend, so of course. The fallout from that high-stakes decision (which I\u2019ll not disclose) is heartbreaking \u2014 and feels ripped from today\u2019s headlines.<\/p>\n

Among the marvels of this play is how much topicality is subtly embedded in it \u2014 touched on are religion and gender, immigration and reproductive freedom, even the carceral state comes up \u2014 yet pulsing through P<\/em>ondering About My Memories<\/em> is the emotional propulsion of a precious but precarious queer crush.<\/p>\n

Catch it and feel it if you can. It\u2019s a gem.<\/p>\n

\"\"
‘Pondering About My Memories’ set piece. Photo by Joseph Hamilton.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Running Time: 50 minutes with no intermission.<\/p>\n

EXTENDED: <\/strong>Pondering About My Memories\/Reflexi\u00f3n sobre el Recuerdo<\/strong><\/em><\/a> plays through June 7, 2025,\u00a0<\/strong> presented by Teatro de la Luna<\/a> at the House of the Moon, 4020 Georgia Avenue NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($30 regular; $25 students and seniors 60+) by phone (202-882-6227), by email (info@teatrodelaluna.org<\/a>), or online<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In English with Spanish surtitles.<\/p>\n

Pondering About My Memories\/Reflexi\u00f3n sobre el Recuerdo<\/strong><\/em>
\nWritten and directed by Rodin Alcerro
\nTranslated by Oscar Quiroz<\/p>\n

CAST
\nManas\u00e9s: Pablo Guill\u00e9n
\nMax: Joshua Lucas<\/p>\n

PRODUCTION TEAM
\nSound Designer: Brandon Cook
\nSound Operator: Silvana Fierro
\nLight Operator: Sara Corral
\nMarketing & Promotion: Marcela Ferlito
\nGraphic Design: Creativity LLC
\nWeb Page: Tortuyen
\nPower Point Presentation: Silvana Fierro
\nPower Point operator: Marcela Ferlito
\nBox Office: Silvana Fierro, Adri\u00e1n Flores
\nProduction: Nucky Walder
\nProduction Assistants: Sara Corral, Silvana Fierro
\nAssistants: M\u00e1ximo C\u00e1ceres, Sara Corral, Marco Echeverria, Santa L\u00f3pez, Gabriel Lora, Martha Red\u00edn, Lorena Urra.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO:<\/strong>
\nTeatro de la Luna to present \u2018Pondering About My Memories\/Reflexi\u00f3n sobre el Recuerdo\u2019 by Rodin Alcerro <\/a><\/strong>(news story, April 25, 2025)
\n\u2018Pondering About My Memories\u2019 by Rodin Alcerro<\/strong><\/a> (2024 Capital Fringe review by John Stoltenberg, July 14, 2024)<\/p>\n

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A deep well of tenderness and sensitivity flows through this production, propelled by poetic memories of an adolescent infatuation. 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